Red Dirt Harriers

I hit the track this morning for some work. It was another nice morning but I can't imagine the humidity abating for long. Jordan and Meagan had matching workouts of 4-8-12-16-16-12-8-4 w/ 60 second rest. The paces prescribed were quick and I didn't run great but I tried to hang with Jordan on the middle reps. I should hopefully be able to substantially improve on my efforts this morning and maybe feel better doing it. I did something like a 200-500-1100-800-1600-1200-600-200, I wasn't happy with missing out on the first 1600 but I had to break for the restroom and I at least touched on some faster paces on the other reps. The recovery made it a pretty honest effort and I at least was able to sneak below 5:00 pace. My goal for the summer is breaking 15:00 so we'll see what happens. The picture above is my uncle's digital rendering of a wave complete with a frigate bird. I think he used only Adobe throughout the process.

Superb weather for the weekend- pretty much uncharacteristic late May stuff in Oklahoma with low humidity and cool, sunny temps. On Sunday Jordan, Meagan, and yo headed to the Oklahoma River to investigate the scene at the Boathouse International Triathlon. There was elite competition on Saturday but Sunday featured the amateur race. We saw Trey Vernon finish in first, but the results indicate a different guy winning which is kind of the downfall of a race with staggered starts and circuit courses for all three disciplines, making it pretty easy for someone to skip a lap or just have a hard time keeping tabs on your competitors. The "long" run was sort of a start and stop affair because we were kind of confused as to how to get around the place and we wanted to stop and at least see how the thing was playing out. I didn't get to see the state track meet but it seemed kind of slow and other than the freshman girl from Norman winning the 3200 and getting 2nd in the 1600, th...

Spenis mandated more music, and music he shall have. Come to think of it, he should probably be named music director of my blog, for it seems like I have come upon way too many annoying obligations lately. Spence's suggested addendum to my previous blog (I use an old video because it also mentions Zonker Harris day, of which I'm a conscientious supporter... of the cartoon hero): I counter with: Neutral Milk Hotel covered by The Apples in Stereo and...(noting the beer on the table) And finally, I have a tribute to Trevor Gillum. Unfortunately, I couldn't be in attendance for his epic high altitude, off-road, 50k this weekend . The thing looked cool and I would much rather be there than here this weekend unfortunately a variety of issues have prevented me from modilizing. "It's all Good" John Lee Hooker as done by Dylan

I've been listening to a lot of covers lately, good and bad. I'm typically not a huge fan, simply because there are so many bad takes on great original songs but I suppose it's a show of respect that a band chooses to run with the same toon, now rap and r&b songs where they use the same backbeat, lets not go too far. Some of the more enjoyable takes in my mind are: Yeah Yeah Yeahs covering "Zero" by Animal Collective (I think the original is better) The Sounds in My Head did a whole Cure covers show that was pretty enjoyable. I don't care for Death Cab for Cutie, they do get the award for the most unaltered impression, which isn't really doing anything for me and doesn't warrant a post: Here are The Flaming Lips & Stardeath and the White Dwarfs covering Madonna's "Borderline." sidenote- How many hammer and sickle T's does Ivins have? Or here is a rendition sans Flaming Lips at our very own Norman Music Fest : I'm throwing...

It's a cool, rainy spring day in Norman today and as such I decided to look upon the recent World Barista Champs . This year's edition took place in Atlanta and was won by the UK participant, Gwilym Davies. As each participant is required to prepare an espresso, a cappuccino, and a signature drink, the competition involves both technical and aesthetic factors in addition to the savvy and impulses of the barista. Interestingly, in recent years, some baristas have preferred to get away from the common "espresso roast" and moved towards a more medium roast technique that better showcases the bean. It cracks me up how nervous these people are, I'll chock it up to the caffeine jitters. It's worth noting that the '08 champ from Ireland, Stephen Morrissey, looks exactly like my former co-worker alias Sean Connor... I'm 99% sure it's the same dude. Jordan and I are going to hit up a slog this evening when each of us get off work, but I think I'll be ne...

Stumbled upon THIS and it's just silly, it makes my running seem so un-inspired but that's just because we have lame venues in these parts. My goal is to make my running more impressive to watch, at least cough up blood or look good just gliding up a hill. We all know I have no footspeed but maybe I can look impressive from a k out in some 5k until the kickers feel their oats and look really good coming after me. I've been running a little bit, after taking Monday off, I ran 45' Tuesday, 35 and 35 on Wednesday, 50 and 30 yesterday, and 50' this morning with 15 uptempo(felt king of rough) but it was warm and 95% humidity. My legs feel alright, but my lungs have been a problem, of course it's super humid too. I'm now doped with Singulair AND Symbicort so maybe these will help keep my asthma at bay. It's really hard to simulate the late marathon issues I've experienced so I'm just going to gauge their effectiveness by how many minutes faster I run ...